solemnize

• solemnise (UK)

From Old French solemnisier, from Medieval Latin solemnizare, from Latin solemnis.

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solemnize (third-person singular simple present solemnizes, present participle solemnizing, simple past and past participle solemnized)

1. (transitive, US) To make solemn, or official, through ceremony or legal act.

   The couple chose to solemnize their relationship in a secular ceremony, instead of having a wedding.

   • 1589–1592 (date written), Ch[ristopher] Marl[owe], The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. […], London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Thomas Bushell, published 1604, →OCLC, signature D, recto:

     He now is gone to pꝛooue Coſmography, / And as I gueſſe, wil firſt ariue at Rome, / To ſee the Pope, and manner of his court, / And take ſome part of holy Peters feaſt, / That to this day is highly ſolemnizd.

   • 1597, Richard Hooker, “Of gesture in praying, and of different places chosen to that purpose”, in J[ohn] S[penser], editor, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], 2nd edition, London: […] Will[iam] Stansby [for Matthew Lownes], published 1611, →OCLC, book V, section 30, page 249:

     Saint Luke declaring how Peter ſtood vp in the midſt of his Diſciples, did thereby deliuer an vnchangeable rule, that whatſoeuer is done in the Church ought to be done in the midſt of the church, and therefore not Baptiſme to be adminiſtred in one place, Mariage ſolemnized in an other, […]

   • 1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, pages 95–96:

     […] Upon the heads of all who ſate beneath, / Lords, Ladies, Captains, Councellors, or Prieſts, / Thir choice nobility and flower, not only / Of this but each Philiſtian City round / Met from all parts to ſolemnize this Feaſt.

   • 1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 138:

     The great mysteries solemnised at Eleusis.

2. To make grave, serious, and reverential.
   • September 27, 1873, John Campbell Shairp, "Wordsworth's Three Yarrows", in Every Saturday

     Wordsworth was solemnized and elevated by this his first look on Yarrow.

   • 1880, Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ:

     Every Israelite […] arose, solemnized his face, looked towards Jerusalem […] and prayed.

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